Saturday, May 17, 2008

"A great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed"

I will be making a video about the latest bin Laden tape. I notice a few news outlets spin it as if he recently made it the main issue as they avoid reporting that in this tape he says:

“The Palestinian cause is the major issue for my nation. It was an important element in fueling me from the beginningand the 19 others with a great motive to fight for those subjected to injustice and the oppressed,” he said, referring to the 19 9/11 terrorists.

I noticed ABC's Diane Sawyer said "so he is now saying Israel is the central issue which is a bit of a shift from years gone by" and Brian Ross says "in the past year or two he has begun to make that the central issue, initially it was US forces." So Ross denies what bin Laden says in the tape and doesn't even mention it in his report and makes a claim it was US troops as central issue while ignoring bin Laden's statements (and the testimony of Philip Zelikow which was purposefully left out of the 9/11 Commission Report in which Zelikow says Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said bin Laden wanted to punish the US for supporting Israel) Fact is, bin Laden sometimes mentioned Palestine first, sometimes second and sometimes third in a usual list of three grievances. OVERALL, for all those involved in the attack, Israel is the main motive. But bin Laden never said, as far as I know, "troops in Saudi Arabia is the main thing" For example:this is from the 1997 interview:

REPORTER: Mr. Bin Ladin, you've declared a jihad against the United States. Can you tell us why? And is the jihad directed against the US government or the United States' troops in Arabia? What about US civilians in Arabia or the people of the United States?

BIN LADIN: We declared jihad against the US government, because the US government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous and criminal whether directly or through its support of the Israeli occupation of the Prophet's Night Travel Land (Palestine).And we believe the US is directly responsible for those who were killed in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. The mention of the US reminds us before everything else of those innocent children who were dismembered, their heads and arms cut off in the recent explosion that took place in Qana (killings in Lebanon perpetrated by Israel)

And remember it was on the wire services on the day of 9/11/01 that "Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on U.S. interests for its support of Israel."

Also, Peter Bergen points out that lies have been pushed: "conventional wisdom has it that bin Laden adopted the Palestinians issue only recently. Reading this declaration [the first declaration of war, issued in 1996] SHOULD PUT THAT CANARD TO REST." p164 The Bin Laden I Know, Peter Bergen

In the 1996 declaration, bin Laden wrote, "I still feel the pain of Al Quds [Jerusalem] in my internal organs" "My Muslim Brothers of The World: Your brothers in Palestine and in the land of the two Holy Places are calling upon your help and asking you to take part in fighting against the enemy --your enemy and their enemy-- the Americans and the Israelis" "It should not be hidden from you that the people of Islam had suffered from aggression, iniquity and injustice imposed on them by the Zionist-Crusaders alliance and their collaborators; to the extent that the Muslims blood became the cheapest and their wealth as loot in the hands of the enemies. Their blood was spilled in Palestine and Iraq. The horrifying pictures of the massacre of Qana [when Israeli forces struck a UN compound on April 18, 1996, killing one hundred] in Lebanon are still fresh in our memory. " p 165 Bergen (see the 1996 declaration of war)osama-bin-laden-has-been-angry-about.html

Another example, in this case, the first thing listed is "Al-Aksa Mosque" (this is about Israel/Palestine) then "Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines":

"The International Islamic Front for Jihad against the U.S. and Israel has issued a crystal-clear fatwa calling on the Islamic nation to carry on jihad aimed at liberating holy sites. The nation of Muhammad has responded to this appeal. If the instigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans in order to liberate Al-Aksa Mosque and the Holy Ka'aba Islamic shrines in the Middle East is considered a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal." - Osama bin Laden May 1999